No tax hike in 'incomplete' first Pocono Mountain School District budget

Pocono Mountain School District's first run at a proposed budget for the 2013-14 school year yielded no tax increase and a balanced, $207.5 million budget — a far cry from last year's preliminary budget.

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By MICHAEL SADOWSKI

poconorecord.com

By MICHAEL SADOWSKI

Posted Jan. 24, 2013 at 12:01 AM

By MICHAEL SADOWSKI

Posted Jan. 24, 2013 at 12:01 AM

» Social News

Pocono Mountain School District's first run at a proposed budget for the 2013-14 school year yielded no tax increase and a balanced, $207.5 million budget — a far cry from last year's preliminary budget.

However, officials acknowledge there's still more work to be done.

District Superintendent Elizabeth Robison said she didn't have details at Tuesday night's meeting about whether the district would have to go through a third round of layoffs.

In the last two years, the district has laid off about 440 employees. She said she would have more specifics at a Feb. 6 school board meeting.

Last year, the first shot at the budget contained a 4.3 percent property tax increase and a $16 million budget shortfall. By the time the budget was adopted in June, it had no tax increase and had cut $22 million in expenses.

The budget process isn't over, however. District CFO Joseph Colozza said he purposely left a number of items out of the budget to meet the no-tax-increase goal.

Included in that list is $1.65 million worth of capital improvements the district has deemed necessary, but don't fit in the current budget's configuration.

The big-ticket item missing is the $1.5 million third phase of a roof project at the East High School in Swiftwater. Board members agreed the project is vitally important and likely needs to be done in the next year.

There is also $1.84 million earmarked for the budget reserve, which equals about two mills of property tax. In 2011, the board made a commitment to put away at least three mills of property tax in this budget, which means another $930,265 would have to be devoted to the reserve.

Colozza also noted the current budget has about $1.3 million of other necessary funds that aren't included, like more than $400,000 for computer equipment and $250,000 for a capital reserve fund.

Ricky Smith, a board member since 1994, said while the zero tax increase is good, it could still be better.

"This fairly represents, for the first time I can remember in a long time, a budget equal to last year," he said. "But our enrollment is still going down, I'd like to see a 2-mill decrease. There is still some fine-tuning that needs to be done."